The Hunt

The hawk shrieked as it swept past the domed tower of the Gothic fortress, startled by the rumbling, blazing torches flickering through the window slots. Inside the stone walls, Himmler stood apart from the others, watching the ritual unfold. Even he was stunned by the power of the play and its setting. Vierhaus watched from the side of the tower, jealous of Himmler’s moment of glory and yet awed by the power of the ritual. It was the first holy ceremony at the new secret SS headquarters at Wewelsberg. Beside him, etched in lurid flickering light, were Hess, Heydrich, Goebbels and Goring—the powers behind the throne.

This was Himmler’s night and he was indeed a genius. No place could be more perfect than this moss-covered, dank castle, its cold halls stalked by Teutonic ghosts who had died jousting for the pleasure of ancient kings or clashing broadswords on some forgotten battlefield.

Himmler’s cold, mouse-like features wavered in the yellow torchlight and his jaws twitched as he tried to control his emotions. He loved the night. It matched the darkness of his soul and the mad fantasy he had brought to life in this eerie fortress. His ghoulish imagination had created a nightmare Camelot, a flagitious Round Table whose homicidal knights now had a secret headquarters in which to swear allegiance to their new king, Adolf Hitler. Not to the Fatherland—to Hitler.

Thirty-six newly graduated SS officers stood in their black uniforms, eyes ablaze with hypnotic fervor, their passionate oath to defend Hitler to the death echoing in the silo-like stone tower while the wind soughed and whipped the torch flames into a frenzy. They stepped forth, four at a time, to touch the consecrated battle standard, the swastika, a perversion of the Sanskrit swastika, a religious symbol to the Hindus, its four points representing the animal and spirit worlds, hell and earth. The left- hand swastika adopted by the Nazis stood for darkness, for Kali, goddess of murder, for black magic and witchcraft. To simply touch the cloth of this flag was sexually stimulating to some of the initiates.

The new black knights of the Third Reich returned to their places on the winding stone staircase, raised their arms and cried out:

‘Heil Hitler! . Heil Hitler! . Heil Hitler!’

They had touched the consecrated flag and taken the oath of fealty to Hitler. Now Himmler walked up the steps followed by Heydrich, giving each of the initiates a sword and scabbard to be worn only at official ceremonies. And each was given the long knife, their dagger of authority.

What a moment for Himmler! Hitler had given him full responsibility for creating the Schutzstaffel and he had gone about it with a vengeance, combining the mission of the SS with his own fantasy, spending three million reichsmarks to renovate the ancient castle known as Wewelsberg outside Paderborn in the heart of Westphalia. Just as the Nazis had perverted the swastika, Himmler had perverted Christian holidays into SS holidays—pagan rituals to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, harvest and spring festivals; had created a funeral service straight out of the Dark Ages, a midnight, torch lit ritual climaxed by cremation; had combined witchcraft and mythology into a pseudo religious order. And he conscripted and nurtured men who disavowed Christianity in favor of darker spirits; who worshipped Ares and other gods of war; who were matched in marriage to Aryan maidens selected by their commanding officers; who dreamed chaos, murder and unspeakable atrocity, their psychoses nourished by the Third Reich and encouraged to flourish by the Führer.

Thus the SS was born; a madhouse government within the government, bound by no laws, with awesome powers and its own secret police, the SD. Hitler’s private army created in the mind of Himmler. But if Himmler had created the machine, Hitler had given it its perverted soul. Racism, Hitler had written in Mein Kampf would give the Germans “blood” and “soul.” It would identify a common “enemy.” It would restore the self- confidence and enhance the ego of the German people. So, he had ordered Himmler to create the SS. It would enforce this Nazi tenet and Goebbels would publicize it. Hate, terror, lies, these were the spine of the Nazi Third Reich.

Vierhaus stared down at Himmler, standing at the base of the staircase, looking up at the new troopers spiraling up and around him. Himmler smiled smugly. Treachery begets treachery, Vierhaus thought to himself. The SS would become Hitler’s avenging army against his onetime friend Rohm, now turned traitor, and his maverick SA brownshirts.

“You are now members of the greatest order in history, Die Schutzstaffel,” Himmler said. “Tomorrow you will take part in a great adventure, one which will tell the world that our great leader, Adolf Hitler, is Germany. And we are the true knights of the Third Reich. We are his army. Sieg Heil!”

“Sieg heil!” They answered.

“Sieg heil!”

“Sieg heil!” They answered.

“Sieg heil!”

“Sieg heil!” They answered.

Himmler raised his dagger over his head.

“Go with God,” he cried.

Everything seemed right but the weather

Saturday, June 30, 1934, had been the day picked by Himmler for Operation Kolibri, “Hummingbird.” Hitler had accepted the date without question, for if Goring was the obese Falstaff to Hitler’s king, Himmler was the Führer’s Merlin. Himmler had relied on his mystic powers, his understanding of the occult, witchcraft, astrology, and numerology, to arrive at the date. He conjured the spirits and advised his leader that the weekend was the perfect time for Operation Kolibri. Himmler was the ultimate magician of the Third Reich. He could even manufacture evidence out of thin air if the Führer needed it.

It was Himmler who had invented Hummingbird, as they all had come to call it, and drawn up the basic blueprints, although everyone ultimately contributed something to the dark plot. Theodor Eicke, the sadistic manager of Dachau, had drawn up the initial list, even going back through old news accounts seeking names that might have otherwise been forgotten or overlooked. Himmler and Goring added their own victims to the growing roll. Then Heydrich dropped a few names in the hat. Hitler had even invited Vierhaus to add his names to the list but the deformed little box of a man declined.

“Danke, mein Führer,” he said. “My enemies are all dead already.”

So the list grew. Not only leaders of the brownshirt Sturmabteilung, but political opponents and old enemies appeared. By the end of June there were over three thousand names on the deadly roster.

The schizoid path of deception and betrayal eventually led to the town of Bad Godesberg, near Bonn, and a quaint hotel called the Dresen which overlooked the Rhine River. In his suite on the second floor, Hitler brooded. His round, astonished eyes glared up into the southern skies, prematurely dark from the storm clouds that were broiling up between Bonn and Munich. Occasionally a jagged arrow of lightning would etch the contours of the river, followed by rumbling drums of thunder.

He stood in the open french doors that led to the balcony, his hands stiff behind his back, his shoulders hunched. The weather had to clear, he said to himself, smacking his fist into his open palm several times. It was crucial that the weather clear. His dinner of vegetables and fruit sat untouched. The room seemed to crackle with tension. Vierhaus, who was smugly honored by being invited to sit with the Fuhrer on this important night, had never seen him look so gaunt and edgy. Hitler’s eyes were ringed with deep, dark circles and they seemed even more feverish than usual. His cheek twitched uncontrollably.

He had made his old friend, Ernst Röhm, probably the best recruiter and trainer of militia in the world, head of the Sturmabteilung and Röhm had built it from 600,000 men to 3 million in one year, an amazing feat. And then Ernst had developed ideas of his own. Dark delusions. Now it was obvious he planned to use the SA to overthrow Hitler.

A born soldier, Hitler’s inner voice screamed, a street soldier, only happy when dealing in death. Why did he turn on me? How could he be so disloyal?

Hitler saw in these elements a truly Wagnerian tragedy. Two magnificent schemers pitted against each other. One of his oldest friends. Now his greatest enemy. Such irony.

And yet, Hitler could still not bring himself to initiate Hummingbird. He had to be sure. He still had to have evidence that his old friend had turned traitor.

He went back in the sitting room. Vierhaus was sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper. He put it aside when Hitler came back.

“I need a cigarette,” Hitler said. “You have a cigarette, Willie?”

“Gauloises?”

“Anything. Just a cigarette,” he said with a wave of his hand. He took it and leaned over for the light, then strode the room, smoking like an amateur, holding the butt between thumb and forefinger, taking short puffs, blowing the smoke out in bursts.

“I did everything I could for him,” he said finally. “Didn’t I write him a letter of thanks at New Year’s?”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“‘I thank you for the imperishable service you have rendered,’ “ Hitler said with mock grandeur, wafting his arms as he spoke. “‘It is an honor—an honor, yet—to number such men as you among my friends and comrades-in-arms.’”

He stamped his right foot angrily and slapped both fists against his legs.

“What do I get in return,” his voice began to rise. “Betrayal. Lies. Treason!”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“This man was my friend!” He roared, shaking his fists at the ceiling. He dropped his arms to his sides and bobbed up and down on his toes. He picked up the newspaper.

“Did you see this article in Der Sturm? He is openly bragging about his . . . his perversion. Compares himself to other ho mo . . . sex . . . uals. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Frederick the Great He stopped for a moment and tried to control his gathering fury. “My God, how many years have I overlooked this. Ignored it. But He ‘waved the paper over his head and slammed it to the floor.

“He has no concept of how important women are to the Third Reich, to the propagation of the Aryan race. Listen to this, listen

He reached down, scrambled through the crushed newspaper and pulled out a page, punched a forefinger at the story.

“‘I renounce the political ideology of the new Germany because it gives women an equal place in contemporary society.’ “ He threw the paper down again. “People think these are my thoughts too, Willie!”

And then, as if to justify what was about to happen, still stalking the room, he said:

“On June fourth, not a month ago, I sent for him. ‘Ernst,’ I said, ‘Stop this madness. You must conform to the rules of the Third Reich.’ Yes, mein Führer, he said. I reminded him of the Beer Hall Putsch when sixteen of our comrades died in the streets and he was himself shot. ‘All our ideals we fought for then are within our grasp. Believe in me,’ I told him. ‘Don’t cause trouble.’ Yes, mein Führer, he said. ‘Take a month’s leave, all of you. No uniforms for a month,’ I said. Yes . . . mein.

Führer, he said.” Hitler started to scream. “Now he has called all his top men to Lake Tegern for a meeting. . . and they are all in uniform! He lied to me. Lies! Lies! Lies!”

Hitler stopped and shook his head violently. Vierhaus decided to divert his attention, get his mind off Röhm for the moment.

“I, uh, have some encouraging news, mein Führer. I had decided to wait, I understand the stress of the evening .

Hitler dropped heavily into a leather chair near the windows. He sat hunched down, his eyes bulging like those of a madman, the whites around his pupils glaring eerily in the shadows. The eyes looked up at Vierhaus.

“No. No you don’t, Willie. Nobody understands it but me.”

Vierhaus saw in the moment, a chance perhaps to curry favor, to take the edge off the night.

“Perhaps while we’re waiting for Goebbels . .

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

“I know who the head of the Black Lily is and how to catch him.”

Hitler’s face did not change but his eyes brightened.

“Who?” His voice was a low rasp.

“The head of the Black Lily is a young Jew, until recently a student. His name is Avrum Wolffson. I also know the names of his chief lieutenants. And best of all, I know how to get to him.”

“Do it immediately,” Hitler snarled. “The moment this is all over, do it.”

“Yes, mein Führer, the process has already started. I hope to arrest him as soon as Hummingbird is complete.”

“What a moment, Willie! If we can destroy Rohm and the Black Lily in one, swift, Blitzkrieg.

“Consider it done, mein Führer.”

“Kill him, you hear me, Vierhaus?” Hitler said, his voice beginning to rise. “No trial, no publicity until it’s over.” He slammed his fist on the coffee table. “Just kill him!”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

Hitler thought for a moment, then said, “Take him to the cellar at Landsberg and behead him.”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

Hitler stood up and began pacing again. “And then cremate him and throw his ashes to the winds.”

“As you wish.”

“I want him obliterated.”

“Yes, mein Führer.”

“Power is in the muzzle of a gun, Willie. Rohm is about to find that out. And this Wolf. . what?

“Wolffson.”

‘Ja, Wolffson. They have made their coffins, now they will lie in them.”

‘Ja, mein Führer,” Vierhaus said and to himself added, It is about time.

Then the messages started. Couriers, telephone calls, telegrams, all reporting on the preparations for the night’s devilish activities. Finally Himmler called Hitler personally.

“Mein Führer, we have irrefutable evidence that the SA is planning a coup d’etat for tomorrow.”

“What! Where did you get this evidence?”

“Karl Ernst has alerted the SA troops for a general uprising.”

Karl Ernst was the SA chief of Berlin, a longtime friend of Röhm’s and a dedicated storm trooper.

“Is Goring there? I wish to speak to him,” Hitler snapped.

“Nein, mein Führer. He is on the street. The entire area between Tiergartenstrasse and the Augustastrasse is cordoned off. The SA are trapped in the middle. Nothing gets in or out.”

“Excellent. Do not move until I give the word.”

“Of course, mein Führer,” Himmler answered.

Hitler cradled the phone.

He went back to the window. The storm clouds raced across the night sky. To the north, the lightning still brightened the heavens. But it was clear that the storm was moving on. Hitler took it as a final sign.

He whirled on Vierhaus. “People must be convinced that this plot to overthrow the government was real,” he said. “Rohm is not unpopular, you know.”

“You can make people believe anything if you tell them in the proper way,” Vierhaus said softly.

Hitler shook his head violently.

‘Ja, ja! But it must come from me. It must be in my words. The people know my words.”

He strolled around the room, stopped and stared at the wall for several minutes.

“Let me tell you something, Willie,” he said. “The world is ruled by fear and the most effective political instrument of fear is terror. Terror conditions people to anticipate the worst. It breaks the will. The people must understand that this. . . insurrection . . . cannot—will not—be tolerated ever again. Hmm?” He nodded approval of his own words.

“So . . . Rohm plans to overthrow the Führer, does he?” Hitler said with a sneer of satisfaction. “Well then, call the airport. I want to know when we can leave for Munich. We will initiate Hummingbird immediately.”

He looked at his diminutive sycophant.

“Let the killing begin,” he hissed.

As they approached Brown House, Hitler could see Reinhard Heydrich standing at attention on the front steps with half a dozen men behind him. There was no mistaking Heydrich. Even in the darkest moments before dawn, his tall, gaunt, ramrod figure was unmistakable. As they drew closer, Heydrich’s cadaverous features and dead eyes were highlighted by street lamps.

Hitler felt a sudden chill. There was something about Heydrich. He was almost too efficient, like a bloodless robot. But he was integral to Hitler’s plans, a man who took orders without hesitation and who performed admirably. When Vierhaus had discovered that Heydrich’s grandmother, Sarah, was Jewish, Hitler had officially purged him of his “tainted blood,” making Heydrich an Aryan by decree.

One of his men sprang to the armored car and opened the door. Heydrich cracked his heels together as Hitler got out and snapped his arm out in the Nazi salute.

“Hell Hitler.”

Acknowledging the salute, the dictator asked, “Well, Heydrich, how does it go?”

“We arrested Schneidhuber and his assistant, Schmid, without incident. They are under guard along with a dozen other SA who were here already, all under house arrest. All protesting bitterly.”

“Of course,” Hitler snapped. Schneidhuber, a former army colonel, was the Munich chief of police and the highest ranking SA official in the city. It was rumored he would be Rohm’s chief of staff if the Wehrmacht and SA merged.

“Schneidhuber,” he growled under his breath as he followed Heydrich into the lobby of the Nazi headquarters building. Schneidhuber was a heavyset man in his late forties who affected the turned-up wax mustache and monocle of the Prussians. His thick lips seemed permanently curved into an arrogant sneer. He was in SA uniform as was his aid, Edmund Schmid, in stature a smaller version of his boss. Small and rotund, he had the dull look of a typical sycophant.

Upon seeing them, Hitler went into a violent rage. His face seemed to swell up. Veins stood out in his forehead and his color turned from white to red almost to purple.

“You traitor!” he screamed at Schneidhuber. “You miserable pig of a man!”

“Mein Führer,” Schneidhuber pleaded. “I don’t underst—”

“Shut up! Shut ... up!” Hitler bellowed. He began to shake. Suddenly he reached out and grabbed the SA insignia on the police chief’s epaulets and tugged at them, jerking the stout officer back and forth, until part of one of the sleeves tore away.

“You are beneath the contempt of everyone, everyone, Schneidhuber, you hear me! You . . . are . . . a . . . yellow, incompetent, lying. .

He stopped and backed away, still clutching the handful of cloth, then dropped it and clawed for his pistol.

Heydrich stepped around him, drew his Luger and held it at arm’s length, six inches from Schneidhuber’s face.

“Mein Gott!” Schneidhuber screamed, a moment before the pistol roared in his face and he felt the burning gasses scorch his face and the sudden explosion in his brain. His head jerked back and he sprawled on the floor, his forehead scorched by the hot powder. The small, singed, nine-millimeter hole was squarely between his eyes.

Schmid fell against the wall. His knees buckled. He held his hand at arm’s length in front of his face.

“Please,” he whined.

Heydrich fired the first shot into the palm of Schmid’s hand. It ripped through both hands and creased Schmid’s forehead. The little man fell screaming to the floor and Heydrich leaned over and shot him behind the ear.

Heydrich turned to Hitler.

“They were beneath your effort, mein Fuhrer,” he said.

“Quite right, quite right,” a shaken Hitler said. “Where are the others. How many are at the hotel?”

“Half a dozen,” Heydrich answered. “The rest will start coming in by train about six.”

“Good. Assign a man to the station with a detail. Arrest them as they arrive. Execute them all.” He looked down at the spreading red stain on the marble floor. “And clean this mess up. Get rid of the ones that are here now.”

“Yes, mein Führer. Heil Hitler.”

Hitler raised his hand in a hurried salute as he walked out the door. Heydrich took three men and went to the conference room where the six SA officers were under house arrest. He opened the doors leading to the courtyard and grabbed a young lieutenant by the arm and shoved him out the door.

“Heydrich, what on earth is happening?”

“You have been condemned to death by the Führer.”

“Why, for God’s sakes? We are not guilty of anything!”

“The charge is treason. Heil Hitler!” And Heydrich shot him in the chest. The lieutenant grunted as the bullet smacked into his body, knocking his wind out. He fell in a sitting position, and looked up just as Heydrich fired a second shot. It hit him in the eye. The other five were shoved through the doors and as they screamed innocence and pleaded for life, they were gunned down and shot repeatedly after they had fallen.

Later in the day, Hitler sat behind his desk in Brown House, arms stretched out and resting on his desk. In front of him was Eicke’s death list. Vierhaus had been checking off the names throughout the day.

Himmler had ordered one hundred and fifty SA cadets and another hundred brownshirt leaders taken to the old military jail outside Berlin and the death squads went to work. Every fifteen minutes, five storm troopers or cadets were led from their cells and marched or dragged screaming to the red-brick prison wall outside. Their shirts were torn off, a circle was marked on their chests, and they were executed by ten SS sharpshooters. That grisly work done, the bodies were tossed into metal-lined meat trucks and hauled to a small village down the road from the barracks. There the bodies were cremated and the ashes scattered in the wind.

Check..

A Bavarian who had helped foil the Beer Hall Putsch eleven years before but was opposed to the annexation of Bavaria to the rest of Germany, was taken out into a swamp and beaten to death with a pickax.

Check.

A music critic who was an outspoken socialist was hanged in his basement and shot four times. His death was listed as a suicide.

Check.

An ex-storm trooper named Grünstadt, who had once been Hitler’s personal bodyguard before becoming Gauleiter of a small German town, was dragged from his farmhouse and had both legs and both arms broken with an ax. Then he was dragged screaming by his collar to a small lake on the farm.

“This is a mistake,” he screamed. “Call the Führer. I was his bodyguard!”

“Verrater,” one of the SS troopers snapped.

“I am not a traitor,” Grünstadt begged.

They threw him in a small lake and smoked cigarettes as they watched him drown.

Check.

General Kurt von Bredow, who had been an aide to General Schleicher during the Beer Hall Putsch, left his house at seven thirty to take his dachshund, Gretchen, for her morning walk. He carried the puppy outside and as he stooped down to attach the leash to her collar, a black Mercedes pulled up in front of the building.

“General von Bredow?” one of them asked.

“Yes?”

The three men raised their pistols and fired in unison. A dozen bullets ripped through von Bredow’s body.

Check.

Gustav von Kahr, seventy-three, who had also suppressed the 1923 putsch, was found in a swamp near Munich, hacked to death with a pickax.

Check.

Check..

Check.

By dusk, the SS death squads led by Goring and Himmler in Berlin had crossed over 1,500 names from Eicke’s list. The Munich operation had slaughtered over 300 more. Before nightfall, almost every name on Eicke’s list was crossed out.

Hitler leaned back in his chair and nodded slowly to Vierhaus.

“Done and done,” he said with relief.

Only Rohm was left.

In the basement of Stadelheim prison, Rohm sat on an iron cot. He was sweating heavily and had taken off his shirt. His barrel chest was black with wet, matted hair. He looked up as the cell door swung open and Vierhaus entered. He handed Rohm copies of newspapers with sketchy accounts of Hummingbird. He laid a loaded pistol on top of the paper.

“The Führer gives you one more chance to make your peace,” Vierhaus said.

Röhm looked up at Vierhaus and laughed.

“If I am to be shot, tell Adolf to do it himself,” Röhm said arrogantly.

“Suit yourself,” Vierhaus said and whirling around, he stalked crablike out of the cell. When he got upstairs, Theodor Eicke was waiting for him. Vierhaus shrugged.

“Obstinate to the end,” he said. “Do it.”

They waited fifteen minutes. Then Eicke checked the clip in his Luger and charged a round into the chamber.

“Heil Hitler,” he said.

“Heil Hitler,” Vierhaus answered.

Eicke went down into the musky, dark, basement cell. The guards watched him as he came down the steps, silhouetted against the sunlight on the first floor, a burly angel of death, gun in hand. He said nothing. He walked to Rohm’s cell and nodded. The guard opened the door.

Röhm looked up as he entered.

“Well, my friend the exterminator,” he said. “So old Adolf does not have the guts to do it himself.’

“Chief of Staff, get ready,” Eicke said.

Röhm threw back his head.

“Mein Fuhrer, mein Führer! Heil Hitler!” Röhm yelled.

The pistol roared in Eicke’s fist. The first shot hit Röhm in the chest.

“Oh!” he cried out. He looked down with surprise at the wound. Eicke shot him again. A second hole burst open beside the first, knocking him on his side. He started to get up again, his head dangling, blood trickling from his nose.

Eicke stepped closer and shot Röhm in the temple. Röhm’s head snapped sideways and he stiffened. Every muscle seemed to tense up. Eicke stood over him. He was about to fire a fourth shot when he heard Röhm’s breath rush out and saw his body go limp.

A few minutes later, Vierhaus entered Hitler’s office.

“Röhm is finished,” he said.

Hitler glowered from beneath bunched eyebrows. There was a moment when he might have felt fleeting remorse hut it quickly passed. He nodded.

“So . . . the opera is over,” he said. And then slowly he clapped his hands together.

“Bravo.

And now he is in control of the German Army, Vierhaus thought to himself. Now the police are under the control of Himmler. In one night, Hitler has eradicated the heart and soul of the SA and almost all of his outspoken political opponents. He is absolute master of Germany. Now all of Europe is within his grasp.

Hitler looked up at Vierhaus, his eyes glittering, his blood lust still not sated.

“Now bring me the Black Lily,” he said.